AERONAUTICS: First Air Liner

“Hoch!” cried Capt. Ernest A. Leh-mann, first officer of the Graf Zeppelin. It was the command to let go. “Hoch!” echoed a multitude of voices, for the same word in German is a cheer.

The first trans-Atlantic air liner had left earth at Friedrichshafen, not to touch it again until it reached Lakehurst, in hours later, after a voyage of 6,000 miles.

The few days’ delay had caused Dr. Eckener much annoyance. It had been his intention to prove that such an undertaking was not a stunt but a practical proposition “rain or shine.” The passengers quartered in the Hotel Kurgarten had also become impatient. Journalists were suspicious that the Zeppelin company was going to break its contract with the Hearst papers to allow no other newspaper representatives aboard by overlooking a stowaway. Peace was restored when a promise was extracted that stowaways would be thrown overboard (attached to a parachute).

It was 8 a. m. on Oct. 11 when at last the workmen who had put so many months of their labor into the construction of this monster saw their beloved giant float away. Some returned sorrowfully to the hangar. “Schluss,” one murmured. “It is done. She is gone.”

Aboard, a different spirit reigned. As the passengers drifted down lanes of bulging, sparkling clouds, sometimes like billows, sometimes like rolling mountains of snow, as they watched the kaleidoscope of towns, forests, mountains and valleys roll beneath, and peered at peasants cheering in the fields, all voted it one of the happiest, most splendid days of their careers.

At lunch the guests seated themselves about four tables each next a spacious, slanting window that allowed even a vertical view. Within, the eye could rest upon a sumptuous saloon of soft, reddish brown, covered with silk tapestries of flower pattern and lined with mahogany woodwork, but eyes preferred to look out. For during the consumption of the consomme, eggs, sauerbraten, noodles and champagne the majestic Mont Blanc was gliding by.

Down the Rhone Valley the ship drifted lower, slower. Dr. Eckener had chosen the southern route.

Came dusk. Twinkling lights dotted the earth below. Stars dotted the sky above. The sight grew monotonous. Passengers returned to their cabins, found hot and cold running water, warm blankets.

Shortly after 5 a. m. the shout went up, “Gibraltar!” All but two dashed out in their pajamas, rubbing sleep from their eyes, the better to see this magnificent last glimpse of land. Soon Count Zeppelin, Herr Brandenburg and Herr Grzesinski ran back to put on overcoats in deference to Lady Hay who appeared in a dressing gown. The two Americans, Manhattan businessman Robert Reiner and reticent Frederick Gilfillan, slept on.

Came unfavorable weather reports. That pleased Captain Lehmann. He wanted to show that weather made no difference. Dr. Eckener, however, veered even further south.

From the Madeira Islands the course was directed northwards towards the Azores. Late in the afternoon the ship was sighted over Sao Miguel headed finally for the open sea. It was at this time that Karl H. von Wiegand, Hearst correspondent, radioed: “While ocean liners along the northern steamer lane are laboring in the heaviest weather, the Graf Zeppelin is sailing along under beautiful skies a thousand feet above the smooth ocean.

“Count Brandenstein Zeppelin, director of the Zeppelin works, and Herr Brandenburg, chief of the German Air Ministry, are calmly enjoying their game of dress as Commander Rosendahl of the Los Angeles looks on.”

Soon these aerial epicures, in a manner time-honored among ocean voyagers, settled down to the business of doing justice to some of the 2,000 bottles of beer, 200 quarts of. champagne carefully selected from among the many which producers had fought for the privilege of presenting to them. But not for lone. In spite of zealous storm detouring, a gale blew up that rent the port stabilizer, buffeted the ship. A reduction of speed became necessary while repairs were being made.

Again unfavorable weather loomed. Dr. Eckener chose to linger in the vicinity of Bermuda while the passengers, restless, longed for speedy finish, tired of the gramophone. The sausages were gone, food was being rationed.

But fears were groundless as the watery expanse below. Stormy Cape Hatteras loomed 20 leagues away and thereafter the pudgy craft snuggled the land. Over Washington she passed and was eyed by President Coolidge, which was properly reported in boxed press notices. Manhattan viewers had themselves thrilled to vicarious trans-Atlantic flying. Baltimore loomed and was drawn away from Philadelphia and its identifying rivers, the Schuylkill and the Delaware, guided the ship toward Trenton. With Commander Rosendahl at the bridge, familiar upper-New Jersey hillets and meadows revolved like a slow treadmill, until the heterogeneous mass of the Manhattan topography was seen waiting. Manhattan-on-the-roof facetiously commented upon the alcoholic content of the ship’s beverage supply. Many a snippy monoplane, a half-dozen biplanes swirled like fleas about the elephantine Zeppelin. One of them, a plane bearing news photographers, nearly brushed the hide of the ship, aroused the nervous ire of Eckener, who frantically waved the annoying flea away, but not before excellent shots of the gaping wound in the port stabilizer had been obtained. Somewhere near the Harlem River the ship dipped her nose—notice of an impending countermarch—and turned. Through the tweedy haze she followed the Hudson and was lost to view in a brace of minutes. It was twilight when the Zeppelin, her cabin lights aglow, settled to a lower level. Lady Grace Drummond Hay peered from a window, cried, “Hello,” waved her hand. The landing crew, 450 in number, grasped the landing lines, slowly drew the ship to the ground. Four years to the day it was since Doctor Eckener landed the Los Angeles in the same place. Straining at the lines the landing crew pulled the ship to a resting-place in the hangar, beside the Los Angeles. It was 5:39 o’clock. One hundred eleven hours had passed since Friederichshafen.